'As one labour giant dies, a new one springs to life'

The newly formed South African Federation of Trade Unions differs from Cosatu in many ways and truly has workers’ interests at heart, says Zwelinzima Vavi

History was made when the South African Federation of Trade Unions was launched in late April, and it has already made a big impact on the country's political and labour landscape.

With 700,000 members from 24 unions, Saftu is already the second-biggest workers' federation after Cosatu. Nearly 20 other unions have already shown interest in affiliating; some are just waiting for a mandate from their structures.

There is an endless stream of phone calls and social media messages from individuals or groups of workers who want to know which affiliated union they should join.    

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Some are members of existing unions that have let them down; others are workers facing problems with their employers and looking for help.

These are the individual problems that are symptoms of the broader crisis facing working people in South Africa today:

• Over 35% of the working age population is unemployed, if we include those who have stopped looking for work. Thousands more job losses are expected — in Eskom, food processing, the public service and elsewhere;

• A growing number of the remaining jobs are insecure and low-paid, as casualisation and exploitation by labour brokers continue unabated. Many employers are trying to sabotage collective bargaining and drive down wages to the lowest level that desperate workers are prepared to accept;

• In all, 47% of all workers earn below the proposed national minimum wage of R3,500 a month. A full 26% of South Africans go hungry every day; half do not have sufficient access to affordable, nutritious and safe food to meet their basic health requirements;

• The richest 1% of the population has 42% of the country's wealth; the wealth of South Africa's top 10% grew 64% in the first 17 years after 1994, whereas the wealth of the poorest 10% did not grow at all in real terms. This has made us the most unequal society in the world;

• The economy is still dominated by monopolies owned by a still mainly white and male capitalist class. Another section of their class, with their cronies in the public service, has become a predatory elite of thieves, turning our country into a kleptocracy where public funds are corruptly stolen to enrich a greedy few;

• There is chaos and corruption in numerous state-owned enterprises, including Eskom, SAA, Prasa, PetroSA and Transnet;

• The economy has been downgraded to junk status; and

• The ruling ANC is paralysed and divided into factions, hiding behind empty words about radical economic transformation while continuing with neoliberal economic policies.

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These problems affect the working class and the poor the most — and existing union federations, which ought to be leading a fightback, are failing abysmally.

This was most starkly exposed when they agreed with the government and business to an insulting R3,500 minimum wage, which will do nothing to lift workers and their families from their present poverty.

They have failed to get rid of labour brokers, end e-tolling, stop the casualisation of labour and address employers' attempts to wreck centralised collective bargaining.

Saftu is determined to get into Nedlac and make sure the workers' real voice is heard.

The pathetic plight of the once-mighty Cosatu could not have been better illustrated than in the Bloemfontein fiasco, where it was forced to end its rally on the most important day of the workers' year, May Day.

Leaders had to scuttle from the stage without uttering a word as Cosatu's members demanded that President Jacob Zuma must go.

At exactly the same time Saftu members were marching in their thousands in the streets of Durban. As one federation was dying, a new one was springing to life.

This is the price the Cosatu leadership — and more importantly its working-class members — are having to pay for its leadership becoming an appendage of the ANC, and for getting embroiled in its bitter factional fights, in which neither side stands up for the workers.

When the metalworkers union Numsa pointed out the dangers of Cosatu locking itself into a subservient relationship with the ruling party and the government, it was expelled.

Cosatu refuses to acknowledge that both the ANC factions — as well as, may we add, the SACP and Cosatu itself — have long been captured by the white monopoly capital they purport to be fighting.

The current neoliberal and austerity programme is the trophy that capital has secured. Cosatu seeks to replace a butcher of the working class with another one.

Cosatu is trying to serve the master and the slave at the same time, hence it is now imploding, disintegrating and toothless.

The immense challenge now facing Saftu is to revive the hopes of the working class, build a vibrant, independent, and democratic workers' movement, and take up the struggle for the total emancipation of the working class from the chains of its capitalist oppressors.

It must prioritise recruitment of the three-quarters of workers who are not in any trade union but are generally the most vulnerable and marginalised workers, and have the greatest need of a trade union.

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To achieve all this the Saftu launch congress committed itself to a set of basic principles, which include:

• Independence from employers (in the private and public sector) and political parties, although this does not mean that unions are apolitical;

• We shall campaign on policies in the interests of the working class and the poor. Congress has already identified key areas for campaigning, including saving jobs, fighting for free education, the national health insurance scheme, land to be restored to the people and an end to the abuse of farmworkers, defence of collective bargaining and the nationalisation of the banks, mines and key industrial monopolies;

• Affiliated unions will be worker-controlled and based on democracy, accountability and transparency, with an insistence on mandates from, and reporting back to, the membership in order to unite workers by democratic means and not by dictatorship from the top;

• Maximum unity of all workers, rejecting all divisive and negative sentiments such as racism, xenophobia, tribalism and ethnicity. We shall welcome and recruit migrant workers;

• Financial self-sufficiency and accountability — and opposition, in word and deed, to business unionism, corruption, fraud and maladministration within our own ranks and in a capitalist society that is inherently corrupt. We must also support workers exposing corruption. We shall spearhead a new battle against corruption, starting with our total opposition to the closure of five power stations that will result in up to 40,000 jobs being lost in Mpumalanga. We will oppose the introduction of new nuclear power;

• A high priority on international worker solidarity;

Inspired by the principles of marxist-leninism, Saftu will have a socialist orientation and be ready to engage in the transformation of society to end capitalist exploitation;

• A commitment to recruiting, building and organising to represent workers and serve their interests; and

• Solidarity with all workers struggling for better wages and conditions of service or to save jobs, and a commitment to do everything possible to save and create jobs.

We are determined that these principles must not just be slogans, but a guide to action. Time is not on our side.

• Vavi is general secretary of Saftu